December 13, 2005

 
            Thomas Clarkson

Thanks for the photo, Rufus! 

The National Ledger
Patricia Heaton Mulls New Series, Hugh Jackman Goes Dark for Role
By Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith
Dec 27, 2005    

Emmy-winning "Everybody Loves Raymond" actress Patricia Heaton says she's in the midst of planning her return to episodic television -- but it won't be anytime soon..........

She says there are two projects upcoming from Four Boys Films. "My husband directed a documentary called 'The Bituminous Cool Queens of Pennsylvania.' Bituminous is soft coal, and we followed a friend of mine back for the 50th anniversary of the Bituminous Coal Pageant. My friend was the Coal Queen back in 1972. It's Dave's homage to small-town America."

As for the second project, she says, "We're producing a movie with Walden Media called 'Amazing Grace' about William Wilberforce. He was the Abraham Lincoln of England, and it's about his life involved with the slave trade there. Michael Apted is directing it, and its got Rufus Sewell, Michael Gambon, Ioan Gruffud and Albert Finney, so it's a wonderful cast."
http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27262334.shtml

December 22, 2005
Herts and Essex News Online
Mercury, UK

Church Rufus
The Legend of Zorro star Rufus Sewell was in Widford's church filming Amazing Grace — and a statue of the man he plays stands just a few miles away.The actor was with the makers of Narnia films to shoot a movie about anti- slave trade campaigner William Wilberforce. Sewell plays Thomas Clarkson, who founded the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade after a visit to Wadesmill on his way to London. It was there that he had a spiritual experience which he described as "a direct revelation from God ordering me to devote my life to abolishing the trade". On that spot in Wadesmill, a monument to Clarkson was erected in 1879.
As the Mercury exclusively reported last week, Balls Park in Hertford has also been used as a location for the major motion picture. Fantastic Four actor Ioan Gruffudd plays Wilberforce and the movie also stars Albert Finney and Michael Gambon.
It will be released at the end of 2006 or early in 2007 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery.
http://www.hertsessexnews.co.uk/news/mercury/hertfordshire_mercury/2005/12/22/church%20rufus.lpf

October 9, 2005
Rufus's role in "Amazing Grace" will be that of Thomas Clarkson, who was co-sponsor of The Society For the Abolition of The Slave Trade.

Thomas Clarkson was born in Wisbech in 1760. He was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, and was afterwards ordained as a deacon.

In 1785 Cambridge University held an essay competition with the title: "Is it rights to make men slaves against their wills?" Clarkson had not considered the matter before but after carrying out considerable research on the subject submitted his essay. Clarkson won first prize and was asked to read his essay to the University Senate. On his way home to London he had a spiritual experience. He later described how he had "a direct revelation from God ordering me to devote my life to abolishing the trade."

Clarkson contacted Granville Sharp, who had already started a campaign to end the slave-trade. In 1787 Clarkson and Sharp formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Of the twelve members on the committee, nine were Quakers. Influential figures such as John Wesley and Josiah Wedgwood gave their support to the campaign. Later they persuaded William Wilberforce, the MP for Hull, to be their spokesman in the House of Commons.

Thomas Clarkson was given the responsibility of collecting information to support the abolition of the slave trade. This included interviewing 20,000 sailors and obtaining equipment used on the slave-ships such as iron handcuffs, leg-shackles, thumb screws, instruments for forcingslave's jaws and branding irons. In 1787 he published his pamphlet, A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of Its Abolition. Clarkson was a brilliant writer and Jane Austin, who completely disagreed with his views on slavery, was so impressed with his writing style that she claimed after reading one of his books that she was "in love with its author".

After the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 Clarkson published his book History of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. Clarkson was not satisfied with the measures passed by Parliament and joined with Thomas Fowell Buxton to form the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery. However, Clarkson had to wait until 1833 before Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act that gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom.

Thomas Clarkson retired to Ipswich, Suffolk, where he died on 26th September, 1846.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REclarkson.htm
Thanks, Rai!

October 7, 2005
"Read an article this morning about a new film based on the life of William Wilberforce, who battled for the abolition of the slave trade.  William is played by Ioan Gruffudd (hurrah for the Welsh), and I'll get to the point! also stars Rufus, as well as Albert Finney and Michael Gambon.  Filming is starting soon, some of it in Westminster Abbey."
special thanks to Sian for breaking this news!!

Historic Figures
BBC.co.uk
William Wilberforce )

Portrait showing William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce

Hailed as a 'Renewer of Society', William Wilberforce was the conscience of Parliament. His great goal was the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery. Wilberforce's early years in Yorkshire held few hints of the man he was to become. Sickly and a poor student, his one skill seemed to be oratory. In his teens, Wilberforce, by now independently wealthy, pursued his pleasures. His years at St John's College, Cambridge, later filled him with "unfeigned remorse" that he had not studied more and harder. Yet it was at Cambridge that Wilberforce began a lasting and important friendship with the former prime minister, William Pitt the Younger. In 1780 Wilberforce was elected to the House of Commons from Hull and from Hull and Yorkshire in 1784. It was also in 1784 that Wilberforce became an Evangelical Christian, a step that changed his life and behaviour completely.
A meeting in 1787 with dedicated abolitionist Thomas Clarkson was to alter the social fabric of the British Empire and, in time, the western world. For 18 years, from 1788 onwards, Wilberforce - with Pitt's support - annually introduced anti-slavery motions in Parliament. But Wilberforce and his supporters had only limited success against the planters in the colonies who relied on slaves for cheap labour. It was not until 1807 that Parliament abolished slavery and it was not until August 1833 - a month after Wilberforce's death - that the slave trade was abolished throughout the Empire. (Thirty years were to pass before President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves in the United States.)

Wilberforce's other efforts to 'renew society' included the organisation of the Society for the Suppression of Vice in 1802. He also worked with the reformer, Hannah More, in the Association for the Better Observance of Sunday; its goal was to provide all children with regular education in reading, personal hygiene and religion. It is appropriate that Wilberforce is buried near his friend, Pitt the Younger, in Westminster Abbey.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilberforce_william.shtml

William Wilberforce, the son of a wealthy merchant, was born in Hull in 1759. William's father died when he was young and for a time was brought up by an uncle and aunt. William came under the influence of his aunt, who was a strong supporter of John Wesley and the Methodist movement. Disturbed by these developments, Mrs. Wilberforce brought her son back to the family home.

At seventeen Wilberforce was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge. Wilberforce was shocked by the behaviour of his fellow students and later wrote: "I was introduced on the very first night of my arrival to as licentious a set of men as can well be conceived. They drank hard, and their conversation was even worse than their lives." One of Wilberforce's friends at university was William Pitt, who was later to become Britain's youngest ever Prime Minister.

William Wilberforce decided on a career in politics and soon after leaving university at the age of twenty, he decided to become a candidate in the forthcoming parliamentary election in Hull. His opponent was Lord Rockingham, a rich and powerful member of the nobility, and Wilberforce had to spend nearly Ј9,000 to become elected. In the House of Commons Wilberforce supported the the Tory government led by William Pitt.

In 1784 Wilberforce became converted to Evangelical Christianity. He joined the Clapham Set, a group of evangelical members of the Anglican Church, centered around John Venn, rector of Clapham Church in London. As a result of this conversion, Wilberforce became interested in social reform and was eventually approached by Lady Middleton, to use his power as an MP to bring an end to the slave trade.

Society of Friends in Britain had been campaigning against the slave trade for many years. They had presented a petition to Parliament in 1783 and in 1787 had helped form the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Of the twelve members on the committee nine were Quakers. As a member of the evangelical movement, Wilberforce was sympathetic to Mrs. Middleton's request. In his letter of reply, Wilberforce wrote: "I feel the great importance of the subject and I think myself unequal to the task allotted to me." Despite these doubts, Wilberforce agreed to Mrs. Middleton's request, but soon afterwards, he became very ill and it was not until 12th May, 1789, that he made his first speech against the slave trade.

Wilberforce, along with Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, was now seen as one of the leaders of the anti-slave trade movement. Most of Wilberforce's Tory colleagues in the House of Commons were opposed to any restrictions on the slave trade and at first he had to rely on the support of Whigs such as Charles Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Grenville and Henry Brougham. When William Wilberforce presented his first bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791 it was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88.

Wilberforce refused to be beaten and in 1805 the House of Commons passed a bill to that made it unlawful for any British subject to transport slaves, but the measure was blocked by the House of Lords.

In February 1806, Lord Grenville formed a Whig administration. Grenville and his Foreign Secretary, Charles Fox, were strong opponents of the slave trade. Fox and Wilberforce led the campaign in the House of Commons, whereas Grenville, had the task of persuading the House of Lords to accept the measure.

Greenville made a passionate speech where he argued that the trade was "contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy" and criticised fellow members for "not having abolished the trade long ago". When the vote was taken the Abolition of the Slave Trade bill was passed in the House of Lords by 41 votes to 20. In the House of Commons it was carried by 114 to 15 and it become law on 25th March, 1807.

British captains who were caught continuing the trade were fined Ј100 for every slave found on board. However, this law did not stop the British slave trade. If slave-ships were in danger of being captured by the British navy, captains often reduced the fines they had to pay by ordering the slaves to be thrown into the sea.

Some people involved in the anti-slave trade campaign such as Thomas Fowell Buxton, argued that the only way to end the suffering of the slaves was to make slavery illegal. Wilberforce disagreed, he believed that at this time slaves were not ready to be granted their freedom. He pointed out in a pamphlet that he wrote in 1807 that: "It would be wrong to emancipate (the slaves). To grant freedom to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters' ruin, but their own. They must (first) be trained and educated for freedom."

In 1823 Thomas Fowell Buxton formed the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Buxton eventually persuaded Wilberforce to join his campaign but as he had retired from the House of Commons in 1825, he did not play an important part in persuading Parliament to bring an end to slavery.

William Wilberforce died on 29th July, 1833. One month later, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act that gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REwilberforce.htm